The present study examined interpersonal synchrony during psychological counseling, focusing on heart rate synchrony. In psychological counseling and psychotherapy, embodied synchrony is considered an important factor related to building rapport and empathy. Recent interpersonal synchrony/coordination studies have addressed this issue, not only at the behavioral level but also at the neurological (brain activity) and physiological (cardiac activity) levels. However, there is little known literature on heart rate synchrony in a psychological counseling context. Therefore, we conducted a single exploratory case study to ascertain whether heart rate synchrony was observed in a counseling session and how it related to therapeutic processes and psychological issues. One male university student and one male clinical psychologist participated in our experiment. The student had a counseling session for 50 minutes. Video data were recorded and two wearable sensors were attached to the chests of both participants to collect heart rate data. We applied nonlinear time series analyses, based on a recurrence analysis, to the heart rate data to quantitatively assess heart rate synchrony. A qualitative analysis was also conducted by three clinical psychologists, based on video data from the viewpoints of clinical psychology and psychotherapy. The results show that the heart rate synchrony between client and therapist was observed and changed dynamically during the session. The present study suggests that heart rate synchrony may occur in some clinically important scenes and reflect psychological factors (e.g., building rapport and empathy) and social relationships (e.g., leader-follower). The present study shows the applicability of recurrence-based analyses to complex heart rate data during psychological counseling, as explored in other interpersonal synchrony studies. Further examinations using more data from multiple viewpoints are expected to support our findings and cast light on the relationship between embodied synchrony and psychological issues in the context of psychological counseling and psychotherapy.
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